To satisfy or enhance performance of a wireless communications system, base stations of different types or different standards are deployed in a homogeneous network, so that coverage areas of a base station or a transmit/receive node with a low transmit power, for example, a micro base station (Micro BS), a pico base station (Pico BS), a femto base station (Femto BS), a home base station (Home BS), a relay base station (Relay BS), a radio remote head (RRH) and wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) hotspot cell, a long term evolution high-fidelity (LTE HIFI) cell, and user equipment (UE) in direct device-to-device (D2D) communication are included, so as to enhance coverage and performance of the network. Such a network structure is called a heterogeneous network.
To improve efficiency of performing cell search and measurement by UE, in the prior art, a pico cell listens to whether UE of a macro cell is in proximity, and when detecting that the UE of the macro cell is in proximity, the pico cell notifies the macro cell of proximity information, so that the macro cell instructs the UE of the macro cell to perform signal measurement on a frequency of the pico cell or the pico cell, and when a condition is satisfied, and the macro cell is triggered to hand over the UE of the macro cell to the pico cell, thereby improving, by performing purposeful search and measurement in a small range, the efficiency of cell search and measurement.
In the prior art, a large quantity of unnecessary UEs of macro cells are triggered to perform signal measurement on a frequency of a pico cell, which increases network signaling load and increases power consumption of UEs.